Stand With FEMA Workers Suspended by Trump for Speaking Out

In a powerful letter, 181 current and former FEMA workers are warning that Donald Trump is undermining the agency’s very mission. They highlighted the lack of qualified leadership and a policy that places Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in control of approving every FEMA contract, grant, and mission assignment over $100,000—an unnecessary stranglehold that risks paralyzing disaster response when lives hang in the balance.

Alarmingly, FEMA has now suspended more than twenty of them--threatening their livelihoods because they spoke out for people and the truth.

These are not politicians or pundits, but the dedicated public servants who show up when floods swallow towns, when fires burn neighborhoods to the ground, when hurricanes batter our coasts. They know firsthand what happens when disaster strikes, and they are warning us that Donald Trump’s reckless policies are putting lives at risk.

Their public warning shows that instead of strengthening FEMA, Trump has weakened it. And Trump's response in suspending their employment shows the lack of seriousness of FEMA's leadership in carrying out its actual mission--which is responding to disasters, not defending Donald Trump. 

Experienced staff are leaving in droves, budgets are being frozen, critical tools like the Future Risk Index are being stripped away, and for the first time in decades, there is no Senate-confirmed FEMA Administrator with the expertise to lead in a crisis. 

The people who know disaster response best are telling us we are heading straight for another Katrina.

And the timing could not be worse. Climate change is accelerating the destruction. Storms are growing stronger, wildfires fiercer, floods deadlier. In Texas, July floodwaters rose more than 25 feet in a single hour—an almost unthinkable surge made more likely by a warming world. These disasters are not abstract predictions; they are happening right now.

When FEMA is undermined, it is communities—our neighbors, our families, our most vulnerable—who pay the price. The voices of FEMA workers are a call to action, a plea for us to defend science, competence, and compassion in disaster response. We cannot allow political games to silence truth or strip away the protections we all rely on when nature’s fury arrives at our doorstep.

Sign the petition to stand with more than 100 current and former FEMA employees in demanding real leadership, restored funding, and respect for climate science. They are risking their careers to tell us the truth. By standing with them, we can support the truth and help them be prepared to aid every community threatened by disaster.
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Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/climate/fema-employees-letter-trump-katrina.html

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5468696-fema-letter-trump-administration-disaster-response/